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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28913214">set fire to history</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/beneathyourbravery/pseuds/beneathyourbravery'>beneathyourbravery</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Finger Sucking, Historical References, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Ministry of Time AU, Minor Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong, Non-Linear Narrative, Time Travel, mentions of period-typical homophobia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:47:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,613</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28913214</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/beneathyourbravery/pseuds/beneathyourbravery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“And so,” Taeyong pipes up, hands clasped in front of him as he gets ready to finally tell them what to do, “you must go back to 1956 and make sure, and I repeat, <em>sure</em>, that Ten returns the Seogamni Gold Buckle to where it was before.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>103</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Kingdom Come Round One</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>set fire to history</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This work is my contribution to the amazing <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/kingdomcome">Kingdom Come Fest</a>, and one of the most self-indulgent stories I have ever written! This AU is based off the Spanish TV-show "The Ministry of Time", which is one of my favourite shows of all time, but you do not need to know anything about it to enjoy this fic &lt;3</p><p>DISCLAIMER: even though I tried my best at researching the topics in this fic, historical references might be inaccurate! Also, I'm not Korean and am, in no way, trying to appropriate from their history or culture nor anything in between. I wrote this fic with all my best intentions in mind—and so I hope you'll enjoy!</p><p>Title from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkI9ibVMIbk">Only The Brave</a> by Louis Tomlinson.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>The first time Johnny sees Ten’s face, it is plastered on a spread of a 1950’s Seoul local newspaper, black-and-white print doing nothing to dull the breathtaking beauty of his teasing smile. Above his head, the word ‘<em>WANTED</em>’ is written in bold letters, like a statement of some sorts: <em>you won’t make it out alive, if we get our hands on you</em>.</p><p>Below the picture—a mug shot of his face that does nothing to hide how insanely pretty he is, confidence exuding off the curve of his grin despite the likely situation in which it was taken; probably at the back of a newly set police station, the wolves ready tear him down for his crimes—the amount printed reads 100,000,000 hwan, the country’s currency in 1956, ten million of today’s won.</p><p>It’s a high enough number to make one wonder, even if just briefly, what the man did to end up like this.</p><p>“He’s a burglar,” Taeyong says into the silence of the conference room, like an answer to Johnny’s unasked question. He’s standing right behind the head of the wooden table around which the whole team is gathered, bleached blonde hair falling over his knuckles when he raises a hand to stroke at the probably throbbing space in between his eyes. The weight of duty is heavy on his shoulders, that Johnny knows quite well. “Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul, better known as Ten. Twenty-four years old, has got Thai roots, lives off whatever job he can find for there’s none that really lasts—you know, apparently he’s just trying to make do. Not my place to judge, obviously, we <em>all</em> know the fifties were not the best years to live here, but yeah. He’s known to have seduced… quite a number of people, men and women alike, to later rob them. He’s been arrested because of it a few times by now, but in the end he’s always left free. The police have better things to do than worry about struggling thieves anyways, and—”</p><p>“Can we please get to the point?” Donghyuck cuts in, cheek resting on his palm where his elbow is pressed to the edge of the table, tiredness bleeding into his tone. Next to him, Mark almost leaps out of his skin, startled by the firm sound of his voice. It’s quite a pair, the one they make.</p><p>Taeyong sighs, nodding his head as he places his fingers down onto the newspaper splayed in front of their eyes, fingertips brushing over the ink shaped to portray Ten’s forehead. “Sure, sure, I’m sorry, you know I just love talking about context!” He really does. Johnny revels in the moments in which he gets to sit down and listen to Taeyong tell him about all the stuff he knows; the years Johnny himself didn’t get to live, how the world changed, and then changed again, and never stopped changing until they got to where they are today. “The thing with Ten here is that, according to our source, as of lately he’s grown fond of high-end, shiny things. Nothing special, right? I love expensive stuff just as much as the next person does, but here’s the catch. Somehow, Ten’s come across the Seogamni Gold Buckle of Pyeongyang and taken it with him. Which, you know, National Treasure number eighty-nine since 1962, big trouble! The Buckle is not supposed to have been stolen in 1956.”</p><p>The projector screen behind Taeyong’s back displays a picture of said treasure, so vivid that its gold seems to shine through enough to blind Johnny with its beauty. On the center of the buckle, a large dragon is carved into the solid gold plate, with six smaller dragons and seven turquoise precious stones surrounding its splendour.</p><p>“This belt buckle right here,” Yuta explains, ever Taeyong’s right hand, once he pushes himself away from the wall against which he was resting to stand next to his boss, “was discovered on October twenty-first, 1916, on the excavations at Seokam-ri Tomb number nine in what today we know as Pyongyang. It was designated as a National Treasure, number eighty-nine on the list, on December twentieth, 1962, and it is displayed in the National Museum of Korea here in Seoul. Before that, though, it used to be one of the highlights of the Joseon Government-General Museum, but in February 1956 it was being kept at a government-owned warehouse while they waited to transfer it to its new home after the war.”</p><p>“Woah,” Mark marvels suddenly, stealing everyone’s attention from Yuta’s captivating voice,  “that looks <em>way</em> too heavy to be used as an actual belt!”</p><p>Johnny laughs at his comment, if only because he finds everything Mark Lee does utterly endearing. Yuta and Taeyong do, too, but Donghyuck just rolls his eyes and attempts to lay a slap on his arm. “Be serious, will you! It’s an important thing!”</p><p>“I’m sorry!” Mark pouts, “I just thought it would be weird for someone to wear that and—”</p><p>“Alright, so!” Yuta resumes his briefing, eyebrows raised as Mark lowers his head with a blush creeping high into his cheeks and lets him speak, “According to our agents in 1956’s Seoul, Ten must have broken into the warehouse last night. Of course, he wasn’t probably searching for anything in specific, and the buckle must have caught his attention for obvious reasons.”</p><p>“And so,” Taeyong pipes up, hands clasped in front of him as he gets ready to finally tell them what to do, “you three must go back to 1956 and make sure, and I repeat, <em>sure</em>, that Ten returns the Seogamni Gold Buckle to where it was before.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Johnny’s life before the Ministry was, to put it simply, quite less exciting than it is now.</p><p>It wasn’t like he could have <em>ever</em> imagined that things could turn out the way they did in the end, anyways, but looking back in retrospective, it all seems as if pulled straight out of a fever dream.</p><p>Year 1885 in Korea, during the last few years of what today Taeyong says is known as the Joseon Dynasty era, was quite uneventful for a scholar like him. John Jun Suh, second son to the Suh family, a lineage of noble government officials he was expected to continue down the blood line.</p><p>In his twenty-four years of age, all Johnny had ever known were books; endless manuscripts from which to extract the knowledge that would one day lead him to pass the <em>gwageo</em> literary examinations that would render him a <em>yangban</em> official, a scholar at the service of his government like his own older brother already was.</p><p>It was the only thing around which Johnny’s life revolved, back then—studying and studying and studying some more, for it would not matter how intelligent of a scholar he was when he sat to take the examinations if he did not manage to pass them all. All of his parents’ faith was put on his shoulders, <em>‘we will be able to do nothing to protect you if you fail’</em>; Johnny Suh’s biggest fear, his most recurrent nightmare every time he went to sleep.</p><p>And nightmares too, just like dreams, sometimes become real enough to taste on the back of the tongue.</p><p>The day the local office communicates to Johnny that he did not pass one of the four <em>gwageo</em> examinations required to access the official rank, the world crumbles around him and leaves him suffocating under the weight of its ruins.</p><p>His parents, outraged at their son’s failure, strip him of everything; disown him from their heritage and kick him out of their home, and suddenly, before Johnny can even blink his eyes, he’s left with nothing but his robes and his heavy heart and one of the books he managed to grab ahold of before his father kicked the door closed and yelled at him to never come back.</p><p>John Jun Suh, promising scholar, the shame of his family; the man who lost everything and was left alive to mourn.</p><p>To this day it still feels like some sort of miracle, the way in which Lee Taeyong was waiting for him inside the abandoned barn in which Johnny found shelter for the night, like an angel in disguise in clothes Johnny had never seen a man wear before.</p><p>“Who are you?” Johnny asked, hands pushed into the sleeves of his Hakchangui robe to protect them from the cold air biting at his skin; not fearing any possible threat, for he had nothing left to lose, dishonour dawning on him like a guillotine.</p><p>The man simply smiled, a gesture full of warmth that Johnny hadn’t seen directed towards him since his childhood; extended a hand towards him, body clad in a jacket and pants that did not conform to the Dynasty’s dressing norms, and said, “I’m Lee Taeyong,” like his name should make a difference, “I’m here to give you a second chance.”</p><p>And Johnny had been so heartbroken, so desperate, that he hadn’t even wondered what Taeyong intended to mean with his words; reached over to take Taeyong’s hand, and didn’t even stop to question why there was a door hidden at the back of the barn when they walked through it.</p><p>At the other side of the door, there was nothing but an infinitely long hallway of concrete walls lined up with more doors similar to the one they just walked out of. As if sensing his confusion, Taeyong had turned around to face him once he’d locked the door closed, placed a hand down on his shoulder to give it a reassuring squeeze and said,</p><p>“Welcome to the twenty-first century,” as if those words made any kind of sense, “and to the South Korean Ministry of Time.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It was Yuta and Taeyong that tried to explain to a very shivery, confused Johnny what the Ministry was all about.</p><p>“You must be lying to me,” Johnny said in the end, standing up from the wooden, cushioned chair they’d had him sit on, eyes full of suspicion as he glared at the two men standing at the other side of the mahogany desk, “There is no such thing as time-traveling! The scholars would have surely found out about it if that were the case, there would be manuscripts about it—”</p><p>“John,” Yuta’s sharp voice cut his rambling, eyes hard as he stared into Johnny’s own, “I know it sounds impossible to believe, for it too did to me, but look around yourself. There is no way we are lying; you’re one of the most intelligent men of your generation, so I’m sure you can <em>see</em> this is not the Seoul you’ve grown up in.”</p><p>He wasn’t wrong. Having taken in his surroundings upon walking into the stance—an office of some sorts—, Johnny had found it impossible to recognise half the mobiliary filling up the space. Most of his attention, though, had been caught by both the massive window offering a view of the outside world, where buildings taller than Johnny had ever seen lined down the horizon, and the strange machine sitting atop what he now knew to be Taeyong’s desk. That machine had to be, somehow, powered by magic, for it showed pictures of things Johnny had never seen before on command, and displayed what was supposed to be the current day’s date—February fifteenth, on the year two thousand and eighteen.</p><p>Taeyong sighed, then, long and heavy, and reached down to withdraw a thick book from one of his drawers. He put it atop of his table, directing Johnny’s gaze to its cover—<em>Encyclopedia of the Korean Modern Times: from the Joseon Dynasty until today</em>, the title read in the Hangul language Johnny knew to have been created in 1443, then published and started to be used by scholars in 1446.</p><p>“I’ve heard you enjoy reading, John,” Taeyong said, gentleness bleeding into his tone, “I hope this book will be able to calm your fears and quench your confusion, but please, believe me when I tell you that you can trust us. We just wanna give you another chance at having a good life, if you will have it. Give it a thought, alright?”</p><p>And Johnny—he’d taken ahold of the book, feeling its weight on the palm of his calloused hands, staring at the endless pages cut sharp that were supposed to contain years upon years of history and new findings he’d lost the chance to live through.</p><p>And then he’d thought about Yuta, a supposed <em>sangmin</em> soldier during the 1500s, who’d been sentenced to death and somehow saved, as miraculously as Johnny, by a Ministry's patrol to be offered a second chance; and about Lee Taeyong, a renowned current-day historian that had taken the Secretary General role at the Ministry of Time at quite a young age, who knew so much about what Johnny had apparently missed by traveling through time that it left him breathless, thirsty for more knowledge, to understand despite the difficulty entailed in wrapping his head around the fact that the world had changed and changed without him having the chance to witness.</p><p>He’d thought and thought, and then the weight of everything had dawned on his shoulders so heavily that he’d broken down crying, ugly like a newborn child, honest like the holiest of priests. “Okay,” he heaved out, after Taeyong had wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulder, home where Johnny had been left with none, “I believe you, I believe you, let me just. What am I supposed to do, I know <em>nothing</em>, I feel so—”</p><p>“Don’t worry, John,” Yuta smiled from his spot sitting on the corner of the desk, relaxed pose and understanding smile stretching his lips thin, “We’ve all been there, you’ll have enough time to learn. After all, this is just the start, isn’t it?”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>During the course of the following weeks, Johnny learns this: the Ministry’s got agents living all over the different time periods of Korean history, in charge of making sure things happen in accordance to the way they originally did, and also has patrols living on the current day that they send to fix breaches in the timeline when something doesn’t go the way it is expected to. It is a secret branch from the Goverment, for nobody outside the own Ministry’s agents should wield the power of such knowledge—time travelling is a dangerous thing, if not done with care and purpose.</p><p>By sitting next to Taeyong in his office and seeing him work through endless paperwork and almost-failed missions to preserve Korean history the way it really happened, Johnny understands this: the Ministry of Time in the year 2018 is the last one there is, for it is the point where history loses the right to its name and simply becomes <em>the present</em>; for nothing has happened beyond today, and so their only duty is to ensure <em>the past </em>happens the way it did to protect <em>the present</em>, as confusing as it may sound.</p><p>By helping Yuta control the flow of people coming in and out the several doors in the underground floor leading to different points in history, Johnny realises this: the book inherited from the Goryeo Kingdom in the year 922 is the driving force of the whole Ministry, for it compilates the direction in time each door takes; and so Yuta is in charge of keeping track of the passing of time behind each door, and to control who goes where and why, and when he is not doing that he is Taeyong’s right hand and together they try to fill Johnny in everything he’s missed from the hundred and thirty-five years he hasn’t got to live.</p><p>And by meeting Mark Lee, Johnny finds the very first friend he’ll ever get to have in both the lifetimes he’s had the chance to try at, for his strong sense of hierarchy and duty will keep Yuta and Taeyong way too far from his reach not forever, but for some time still.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Meeting Mark comes to Johnny as a blessing in disguise.</p><p>“Dude, but it’s <em>not fair</em>!” The then twenty-three years old writer cries out into the open of Taeyong’s office, slumped on the wooden chair next to Johnny’s as if his spine was too curved for him to stand straight, face buried in the palms of his hands, much tinier than Johnny’s own, “What do I care about time travelling, I simply wrote that book first! It was my idea, I didn’t copy it from anywhere—maybe it was <em>that guy </em>who plagiarized me, huh?”</p><p>The facts for Mark Lee’s case are simple: for some reason, the young writer living in 2016 South Korea—just a couple years before the Ministry’s present time, September 2018—sent to his editor, (un)fortunately a Ministry’s agent, a draft for his very first novel that resembled word by word that of a book that would become a <em>best-seller</em>… published by someone who was <em>definitely</em> not Mark in December, 2017.</p><p>“John and I have checked all the doors we’ve got leading to the dates between the moment when you, Mark Lee, submitted that draft to your editor and the publication date of the book in 2017, and there is only <em>one</em> out of the twenty-one time-lines in which it is actually <em>you</em> submitting that draft,” Yuta explains, the same story he told when Johnny had first walked into the main office with a dumbfounded Mark in tow, “I’m so sorry, really, but it’s <em>clearly</em> a distortion, and so we cannot let you go back and publish that book.”</p><p>“You have to be kidding,” Mark whines, certainly less confused about the actual existence of the Ministry of Time than about why it cannot be him publishing the book. Johnny, in the quietness of his own conscience, pities him—he’s sure the boy worked hard on his book for it to be ripped away from him by the claws of history, but duty is duty, and so he says nothing and lets him ramble, “so what am I supposed to do then? Go back and pretend the last nine months of my life haven’t existed? That draft was <em>my baby</em>, do you really expect me to think it’s okay for you to take it away from me like this? Hell, c’mon—you, Johnny! You have to see I’m right, c’mon, tell them, <em>please—</em>”</p><p>Up to this exact moment in time—a time he’s not so sure exists anymore, but time still—, there has never been someone that’s called him by a name that is not <em>John</em>.</p><p>John Jun Suh, the name given to him by the same parents that stripped him of his everything and left him on the streets to rot after a failure that, now he realises, wasn’t worth all that much, for there would always be other chances; identity worn like a crown in a society that has long since disappeared, that now carries with it nothing but sour memories of a bitter past.</p><p><em>Johnny</em> sounds soft and gentle on Mark’s tongue, agitated with anguish as he is, and so he decides he likes it and keeps it to himself—his very first piece of homeland, in a kingdom far away from his own.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Johnny sighs, mindlessly reaching over to place a calming hand down on Mark’s forearm, eyebrows raised as he tries to get him to stop fussing, “Listen, I know it sounds unfair—it probably is, cause you really wrote that draft and all that but… you can think of this as a sort of second chance, maybe.”</p><p>“How,” Mark’s miserable voice cracks as he pronounces the syllable, the sadness sitting heavy on his heart bleeding out into his forlorn expression, “Dude, how do you want me to go back home and pretend this hasn’t happened—”</p><p>“Actually,” Taeyong finally cuts in, his eyes apologetic as he glances between Johnny and Mark, “It’s not possible for you to… return back to your old life, you see.”</p><p>“<em>What?!</em>” Mark cries, eyes so wide Johnny’s afraid they’ll fall out of their orbits before he’s got time to faint, “What do you even <em>mean</em>, oh my God, <em>are you gonna kill me—</em>”</p><p>“Nobody’s going to kill you,” Yuta laughs, placing a hand down on Mark’s shoulder, opposite side to where Johnny sits, “Listen to Taeyong, okay? We’re not the bad guys you think we are right now.”</p><p>“Sure you’re not,” Mark mumbles, sighing as he readjusts his position on the cushioned chair, eyes downcast before he looks at Taeyong with unconsciously pouty lips, “Okay, then what?”</p><p>“As I was saying,” Taeyong smiles, halfway stopping himself from spinning around in his own wheeled chair, “We cannot let you go back to your old life, Mark. Now you know about the Ministry’s existence, which, you know, top secret! And it would be unfair for us to leave you without anything, after taking away your draft so… I’ve got an offer for you. One I hope you’ll consider.”</p><p>“That <em>totally</em> sounds like a threat,” Mark speaks cautiously, eyebrows raised. It makes Johnny have to muffle a chuckle into the crook of his elbow—manners have surely changed with the passing of time, but this boy is certainly funny, that he won’t deny.</p><p>“It’s not!” Taeyong laughs with a shake of his head, “I just think it’s a better option than to go back to your own time having an agent assigned to you to make sure you don’t spill any secret information. We’d rather you join us, if you’d like. I think you could turn out to be of great help, maybe form a patrol with John here—you know, he’s still getting used to living in today’s world and you, Mark, would have only missed a couple years if you stayed here… Johnny’s well past the century of missing out stuff.”</p><p>Silence falls heavy over the room then, with Mark’s eyes intently fixed on the papers resting atop Taeyong’s desk as he, Johnny guesses, ponders over the offer.</p><p><em>Maybe form a patrol with John</em>, Taeyong said. That would entail putting Johnny out on fieldwork, after seven months of learning by observation, totally out of his comfort zone. Scholars were men of study, not of action, but this—this sounds like a new challenge, the real opportunity to redeem himself at life, and so Johnny finds out he would really like to do it; and do it with Mark, oh, does it sound appealing. The boy seems like such an agitated human, from what Johnny’s had the chance to witness, but his words are sincere and he sounds honest, and he hadn’t treated Johnny like an outcast for coming from another time.</p><p>It’s because of this that, when Mark huffs out another puff of air and says, “Fine, fine, you win. As long as you let me go back to visit my family some time… I hope this job will pay better, anyways,” Johnny finds himself inevitably smiling in delight.</p><p>In the back of his mind, he’d always believed himself in need of a good friend—back in 1885, here in 2018, all of his life Johnny has known nothing but studying and his books, becoming an official his only worry, his only dream; and Mark Lee opens up that possibility with his complice smile and the firmness of his handshake.</p><p>“I’m sure you two will make a great team,” Taeyong grins, reclining back into his seat with a mischievous glint in his eye—the one Johnny has learnt to recognise as sign of an incoming idea, his mind never put at a stop, “You could even share a flat, maybe—I’m sure we could approve for the expense of it in the budget we have to pass by the end of the month.”</p><p>It makes Mark Lee laugh loudly. “Are you <em>for real</em>? A free flat? Yo, Johnny, we gotta say yes to that! Maybe you don’t know yet, but accommodation is <em>quite expensive</em> as of today and—”</p><p>It makes Johnny tilt his head in amusement, lips pressed together before he says, “Now, that <em>does</em> sound like a mission of some sorts, doesn’t it? Let’s try.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The nineties are revolutionary in a way that blows Johnny’s mind away from the very first second he, Yuta and Mark step out of Door #127 straight into 1996.</p><p>By now, after ten months since he was first taken away from his time and brought to the Ministry of Time in 2018—where the December snow is just starting to fall, coating tall buildings in white the same way it used to cover Johnny’s house backyard a couple centuries ago—, he’s more or less used to the changes that have shaped the twenty-first century’s society into what it is today.</p><p>He knows there are cars and more-or-less understands smartphones to the point where he can communicate with his friends—namely Mark, Yuta, Taeyong and sometimes the Ministry’s secretary, a boy from 1912 named Kim Jungwoo too kind and smiley for when Johnny is called in a little too early in the mornings—, and after telling him about feminist movements and LGBT issues, Taeyong always says it is astonishing how open-minded Johnny is for a man from his time. Whenever he does, Johnny just blushes and shrugs and says all he’s ever thought about is learning—and if the world has changed, he’s no one to judge it but accept it, and interiorize things until they, too, become a part of himself.</p><p>Yuta says he’s quite the example and wishes everybody, including most of the people from the present, were as tolerant as Johnny is. Mark says he needs to start living outside his books a little bit and forces him to try beer and get used to it.</p><p>Mark and Taeyong, Johnny learnt quite early into their relationship, both like men. Mark says he is bisexual while Taeyong is gay and, although not legally because it’s sadly not allowed in their country, by all means <em>married</em> to a one important archeologist called Kim Doyoung.</p><p>It took Johnny a little while to get over the whiplash the brand new knowledge that men can also like men gave him, because while Johnny himself had never dedicated any time of his life to think about love for anything that wasn’t his books, all he’d ever known were man-and-woman marriages. Mark, Jungwoo, Yuta and Taeyong sat him down and talked to him about sexual identity and in the end, Johnny came to the conclusion that he doesn’t care who his friends love as long as he has them by his side, and so he takes it all for granted and that’s the end of it.</p><p>And he might have felt a little bit curious, in the back of his mind, about the gentleness with which Taeyong speaks about his husband, about the freeing realisation that love is an emotion all humans are allowed to feel. It feels like taking a step forward towards an unknown destination—but his heart welcomes it and, quietly as ever, it whispers to him, <em>the world may have changed, but so have you</em>. It’s not an unwelcome thought.</p><p>Still, in 1996 waiting on the queue to enter <em>Trance</em>, the first openly gay bar in Seoul, Johnny feels himself getting a little queasy even though he doesn’t quite know why. Mark says it’s because this is their most important mission up to date. Yuta pats his shoulder and tells him not to mind the people giving them dirty stares while they walk past them down the streets of Itaewon. Johnny nods his head and just looks around himself, silently wondering about how radically clothing trends change between decades.</p><p> </p><p>That same morning, in 2018 instead of 1996, Taeyong had been quite clear when he’d briefed them on their mission for the day.</p><p>“Lee Donghyuck,” he’d introduced their objective, a boy with round cheeks and caramel skin captured on a picture taken by an agent in his time, “Twenty-one years old, a college student living in Seoul—<em>no, Mark,</em> I’m not sending you two to Jeju again, you cannot just <em>go swimming </em>while on a mission! Anyways, poor boy’s done nothing wrong, except for the fact that he’s accidentally stolen his best friend, Huang Renjun’s, protagonist role in a musical. Word says he went with him to the casting just to, you know, be a supportive friend and all… and they ended up casting him instead. And like, I’m sorry for the kid but… history says it <em>was</em> Huang Renjun getting up on that stage and not him in 1996!”</p><p>“So,” Mark says, eyebrows raised, “you’re sending us to… ruin another guy’s dreams? Why, cause I’ve already lived through that experience so I can empathise?”</p><p>“Very funny,” Taeyong rolls his eyes, but then lets out a sigh, “but maybe I am. Listen, what I want you to do is to make him come back here with you and, quite literally, save him from a miserable life.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Johnny asks confusedly, “Is he in danger for taking that role or something?”</p><p>“It has nothing to do with the role,” Taeyong says, eyes sad but stern when he speaks, “Records say Lee Donghyuck is going to be caught having an… <em>affair</em> with an important businessman in 1998, which will destroy his every chance at having a career and sadly ruin his life, as his family will too disown him after the scandal of knowing their son to <em>like men</em>. And, hear me out clearly on this, <em>we</em> have the opportunity to give him another chance—to live freely and safely be himself in a world a little bit more tolerant than it used to be back then, all the while doing history a favour and giving Huang Renjun his rightful role. So I, I’m not afraid to say <em>very personally</em> this time, think it’s our duty to do this for Donghyuck. Shit, I wish I could do it for literally <em>everyone</em> suffering because of this all throughout history, but—”</p><p>“Alright, boss,” Yuta cuts in, hand placed down on Taeyong’s shoulder in a gesture Johnny by now recognises to be of great comfort for his boss whenever he gets this agitated, “I think they’ve got it by now, right?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Johnny and Mark say at the same time, sharing a worried glance, “I’m sorry,” Mark adds, eyes downcast, “I shouldn’t have said anything before you finished telling us and—”</p><p>"It's all fine," Taeyong tells him with a quick shake of his head, "I guess I've got it well-deserved."</p><p>"So," Johnny pipes up, hoping to divert the topic from Mark's clear frustrations and Taeyong's quiet blame, "1996’s Seoul, right? Is there anywhere specific where we should look for him?"</p><p>Yuta and Taeyong share a look full of something Johnny does not yet quite have a name for. At last, it is the Secretary General that speaks, certain in the accuracy of his words.</p><p>"Door number 127 will take you both and Yuta, who is going with you for support, straight into December 13th, 1996. That Saturday night, Lee Donghyuck is going to meet Moon Taeil, the businessman that will be the cause of his demise in a couple of years time, at <em>Trance</em>, the first gay bar to open in Itaewon right on that same year. You three must go to the club and, one, stop him from <em>meeting</em> that man, and two, recruit him as an agent for our Ministry so we can help him and preserve history at the same time."</p><p>"So we're going <em>partying</em>?" Mark squeaks, excitement bleeding into his tone, "Johnny, dude, this is even better than Jeju's beach! It’ll be your first time clubbing, right? And during the nineties no less! I heard those were <em>wild</em>.”</p><p>Johnny thinks Taeyong scolds them, but he’s more focused on the fond roll of his eyes Yuta gives him, and the way he smirks at them all before saying, voice saturated with amusement,</p><p>"I'm sure it's going to be quite an interesting mission for everyone."</p><p> </p><p>Yuta brings Johnny back to the present—or the past, it gets incredibly confusing in moments like these—with a noisy clear of his throat, eyes sharp when he looks at him and Mark.</p><p>"Okay, before we go in, I just want to tell you that I'm not going to... <em>report</em> to Taeyong everything that might happen tonight, but I'm just gonna request one thing out of you two for this mission. Do not, I repeat, do <em>not</em> get drunk until we've made absolutely sure that Lee Donghyuck is going to come back to the Ministry with us. Duty always comes first."</p><p>"Does that mean," Mark trails, eyes open wide, "that we can get drunk <em>after</em> we do it?"</p><p>At that, Yuta lets out the most high-pitched laugh Johnny has ever heard from him, eyes closing into crescent moons as he shakes his head. "Of course. I'm not so confident that it's going to be an easy task, though, but I trust we three can manage to make it."</p><p>Johnny nods his head, brain always set on the goal for the greater good, the inherent purpose of his very existence at this moment in time.</p><p>Mark nods, too, his lips set into a thin line of seriousness; brings his hand down on Johnny's bicep over the denim jacket they're making him wear and tells him, "We've got this, dude. This is going to be the party of a lifetime!"</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The atmosphere inside of the club is charged with such an unfamiliar kind of electricity that Johnny can almost feel it sliding over the bare skin of his arms, making the thin hairs there stand on end.</p><p>As he makes his way through the crowd with the picture of Lee Donghyuck’s image engraved on the back of his eyelids, Johnny watches how the people around him are pressed against each other in what he presumes to be modern-day dancing, hands roaming over foreign bodies as if intimacy had lost the need to be intimate. It still leaves him startled, despite Mark’s and Taeyong’s endless explanations about how the social revolutions of the nineties shaped current-day society into what it is today and how literally everything is different from what Johnny once knew. Johnny has never danced out in the open like this, for such trivial things were not scholar’s to enjoy; has never known the touch of hands other than his own mother’s on his skin when he was a baby, for such privilege is reserved for marriage, if it comes, if it’s earned.</p><p>Still, shocking as it is, after a couple of minutes examining the place in hopes of catching sight of their target in between the mass of faces blurring together with the rhythm of the bass, Johnny finds that he is by no means bothered by the activities he’s been tasked to witness tonight. He doesn’t mind the people drinking and laughing together, happiness pouring out of their lips in loud bursts of joy; doesn’t mind the loud music, tangling itself with his thoughts and easing the worries, taking away the tension pulling his muscles taut; doesn’t mind the way couples, of the same or different sex, press their mouths together in the middle of the dancefloor, hands pushed underneath rucked clothing and while tongues drink from the unashamed displays of love and desire dripping from each other’s parted lips.</p><p>This must be, Johnny decides, what Mark meant when he said tonight would be <em>the party of a lifetime</em>: guiltless enjoyment of a certain moment in time, everything behind the doors of the night bar stopping in its motion until the only reality in which to live is that taking place within its walls, light and free like the feathers of the birds Johnny ached to fly with when he was still a kid.</p><p>Still, duty weighs more than unsated aches inside Johnny’s chest, and so he shakes his head in an attempt to clear the fog taking up space inside his skull and tries to focus on the task at hand: finding Lee Donghyuck and being able to call tonight’s mission an undeniable success.</p><p>Surprisingly enough, it doesn’t take Johnny long to spot his target.</p><p>From the other side of the bar, he watches the events unfold as if in slow motion, the way Mark doesn’t even have to work for it: their mission walks over to him on sure feet, bottle in hand and confidence exuding off his frame in waves, and says, voice laced with sensuality, “Hey there, handsome. Did you come alone?”</p><p>Mark didn’t. Johnny is still standing there, only a few steps away enough for Donghyuck not to have noticed him. Yuta is waiting for them right on the opposite corner of the club, nursing a drink as he keeps tabs on every single person coming in and out of the front door.</p><p>He says he did, anyways, and Johnny watches Donghyuck’s hand make home out of Mark’s forearm to support himself as he leans forward, lips shining under the dim lights to whisper in his ear, “My name’s Donghyuck,” as if it were a secret untold, “Wanna have a drink with me?”</p><p>Long moments later, when Johnny nurses a cocktail of extravagant name with Yuta by the bar after they’ve made sure to have it all under their control, he will dart his eyes away when Donghyuck’s lips leave a wet trail of kisses down the column of Mark’s neck, making history and claiming home.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s been almost two years now since that one fateful night, and Johnny still questions, sometimes, how it was possible for things to have turned out way better than anyone at the Ministry in 2018 could have expected.</p><p>Autumn in the year 2020 feels way less cold than it did back in both 2018 and 1996, when Johnny, Yuta and Mark brought Donghyuck into the Ministry of Time and opened up endless opportunities for them all without even realizing it.</p><p>Always silently, for he is a reserved man before he is anything else, Johnny is so grateful that everything happened the way it did; feels himself in debt with history for giving him a life and a team he would not change for anything in the world—a second chance he treasures more than he could have ever done with his first life, full of adventures and emotions he had never believed himself allowed to feel.</p><p>Two years down the road from that night at <em>Trance</em> where everything changed yet once again, Johnny, Mark and Donghyuck form the most successful patrol of the present-day Ministry of Time. Their outstanding record of completed missions slowly opens up the way for them to become the ones in charge of the most important tasks, those that Johnny had once watched Taeyong plan for others to perform, and pride beams inside their chests quietly. Being together like this, it feels too much like family—like they <em>belong</em>, centuries or years away from their own timelines, navigating history with such ease that it gives further room for enjoyment, never losing the rush of excitement that comes with walking through one of the doors on the basement into another moment in the history of their lives.</p><p>Today, despite being unable to pinpoint their exact anniversary because of jumps throughout time, Mark and Donghyuck are officially a couple <em>and</em> Johnny’s best friends. He and Mark still share their apartment, and Donghyuck spends so much time with them that it almost feels like he lives there, too. Johnny knows with a certainty that should probably hurt less than it does that he could have never known such happiness back in his time, that 1885 would have only brought him pain where 2020 shines with kindness; and yet sometimes, when Mark goes a couple years back to visit his family or Donghyuck revisits the now 2000s to meet with the rightfully successful musical actor Huang Renjun, Johnny feels loneliness crawling up his veins in a way he wishes he could stop.</p><p>It might have something to do with having nobody but people who, despite loving him in a way Johnny cherishes like nothing else, all have somebody else to turn to when he cannot offer them refuge. It might have something to do with having no friends or family beyond the ones he’s got now.</p><p>It might have something to do with how much he thinks, and so he simply lets himself keep learning to live outside of his time in the best way he can, enjoying everything, basking in the little things.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The evening February wind of 1956’s Seoul blows strong and mean cold.</p><p>As they make their way down the street from the Ministry’s door into this time towards the agent’s house in which they’re allowed to stay during the length of their mission, Johnny presses himself tight around the thick wool of his coat and looks around their surroundings with eyes as curious as his own soul.</p><p>Taeyong had told them the fifties in South Korea were years of recovery from the horrors of the war. That, Johnny can see in the way men down the corner work to rebuild the marred remnants of what had once been a housing building, in the way there are posters hanging on shiny new windows announcing the reopening of a store. He can see it, too, in the way people still go on with their lives, out on a walk with friends, children still playing together and bringing hope.</p><p>The mission presents itself like quite the challenge for their patrol. They have no idea where to look for their target, Ten and the Gold Buckle he’s got with him and which they must return to its rightful place.</p><p>If it were down to Johnny, he would start searching for him straight away, no distractions from the objective. Mark and Donghyuck, despite being two of the most capable beings Johnny has ever met, of course have a different idea.</p><p>“Dude, do you see that market over there?” Mark says, voice pitching higher with a spark of excitement, “I’m mad hungry, can we go take a look?”</p><p>“You’re like a kid,” Donghyuck responds with a roll of his eyes, but he’s already swerved his way to start walking towards the general direction of said market, “C’mon, let’s take a look. It looks pretty busy.”</p><p>Johnny can’t help the fond smile that stretches over his lips as he follows Donghyuck’s lead across the road towards the square where a street market is bustling with people. Even from afar, the delicious smell of freshly baked bread reaches them and pulls them in like a magnet, luring them into the narrow streets drawn in between the different stands and packed with people purchasing all different kinds of goods. Johnny’s stomach growls at the untold promise of food, and as they finally reach the first stand where Mark marvels at the different products on display, he decides that maybe getting a little bit distracted from the mission might not be that much of a bad thing.</p><p>A few minutes later, he finds out it truly isn’t.</p><p>It happens so fast that Johnny almost misses it. One second Donghyuck is leaning forward to talk to the vendor of the fresh bread stand, the woman’s attention solely focused on this boy with kind eyes and a bright smile that does not seem to know how to quite deal with their currency, when Johnny catches sight of a little bit of a hustle right behind her. The tent that serves to protect the wooden boxes where the freshly baked bread is stored is quietly lifted, then, and the next second there are hands grabbing a loaf and quickly disappearing behind the tent again.</p><p>Johnny is the only one to notice the theft, and insignificant as it may be, something nags at his brain and begs him to try and catch whoever it is that did it.</p><p>When he carefully makes his way towards the back of the tent, eyes alert and quiet steps, he learns to be thankful of both his instincts and his memory.</p><p>Walking away towards the back of the square, hooded pulled over his head and loaf of bread held tight between his arms, still not far enough for him to be hard to spot despite the darkness starting to drape itself over Seoul like a blanket, Johnny recognizes the slope of the nose Mark himself called <em>cute</em> upon seeing it plastered on a newspaper spread a few hours ago.</p><p><em>That’s Ten</em>, his mind screams at him, <em>go</em>.</p><p>With a sudden surge of adrenaline thrumming through his veins, Johnny rushes back to Donghyuck and Mark and tells them, as shushed as he can despite the budding excitement, “I saw him, let’s go, <em>let’s go</em>!”</p><p>They don’t even have time to ask before Johnny is grabbing Mark’s arm and pulling him to run, Donghyuck following suit as they both realize what he’s been trying to say.</p><p>Missions like these require finesse, Johnny reminds them when they start following Ten a handful steps behind, and so they make sure to stay far away enough for him not to realize he’s being followed.</p><p>“We’re gonna need a plan,” Donghyuck says quietly, slightly muffled by the scarf he’s covering the bottom half of his face with, “I’m sure he’s smart enough not to trust us if we just pull up to him.”</p><p>“Yeah, that’s right,” Mark nods, humming as they round yet another corner, clearly directed towards the outskirts of town, “Let’s just see where he lives, first, and then we can come up with something.”</p><p>Johnny agrees with them quietly, his hands pushed into the pockets of his coat as he tries to keep his body warm under the cooling weather. Something inside tells him this mission is not going to go quite as smoothly as they first thought it would. He tells his brain to stay quiet, but the voice does not come from there but from the heart, and so he waits.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Morning comes to them slowly. With the sun lazily starting to peek from behind the houses surrounding the one where they’ve spent the night with a 1956’s Ministry’s agent and the soft breeze of dawn shaking the branches of the trees that grow too close to the windows, Johnny decides it’s finally time to get the day started.</p><p>He’s already been awake for quite a while, anyways.</p><p>Ever since they returned from the little adventure that was following Ten into the outskirts of town, where buildings are still in ruins and people do not laugh as much as the ones in the heart of the city do, Johnny’s been unable to put his brain at rest. Every time he closes his eyes, the images from the previous evening start to replay themselves against the back of his eyelids, painful in a way he does not quite know how to describe, and he can’t help but keep turning the knowledge gathered about their mission and around inside his head until sleep was so far away it had just been impossible for him to reach.</p><p> </p><p>Ten had walked, with his hood pulled up and his stolen loaf of bread under his arm, until he’d reached the ruins of what had once probably been a building of some sorts. On this day in 1956, it is still destroyed and by no means in a process of being rebuilt; with debris laying around in piles and half-crumbled ceilings giving insight into the sunset-lit sky if one were to look up.</p><p>When he gets there, Donghyuck, Johnny and Mark watch him from where they hide behind a half-destroyed wall delve into the depths of the ruins until he reaches a dark corner, where the last remnants of what once probably was a room serve as some kind of shelter, and from afar Johnny is able to see there’s something all piled up on the ground.</p><p>“Probably something to cover with,” Mark mumbles, eyes fixed on the way Ten’s frame moves so lightly around the barely lit space, “Shit, does he actually live here?”</p><p>“Shush,” Donghyuck is quick to intervene, “This place probably echoes, shut up.”</p><p>Ten sits down with his back against the broken wall, then; places the load of bread down against the top of his thighs before starting to eat away at it like he hasn’t had anything to eat for days—<em>he probably hasn’t</em>, Johnny thinks to himself, and his heart ties itself into a knot so tight it hurts more than if it were to simply break inside his chest.</p><p>The sun has almost finished its journey setting down the horizon line, and the night presents itself to be unforgivingly cold out in the open. When Ten finishes eating his bread, he curls up on the ground and drapes what looks to be some sort of blanket over his body, and Johnny feels his throat constricted under the force of an invisible feet. A soft choir of mewls can be heard, then, and the three of them watch how a couple of cats crawl towards Ten and curl against his frame, as if there were no home to them but him.</p><p>“Nobody deserves this,” Johnny says, almost breathless, when it’s clear they’re getting nothing out of tonight.</p><p>“Yeah,” Donghyuck mumbles, sadness dripping into his tone, “And the authorities are probably searching for him, if that newspaper was anything to go by. He isn’t safe here.”</p><p>“Let’s go,” Mark ushers, turning around on his feet and starting to walk away, “We need to think about what to do, but we can’t let him see us here. It’ll scare him away.”</p><p>When they’re already on their way towards the agent’s place, Johnny’s heart heavier than a stone inside his ribcage, Ten pushes his hand into the pocket of his pants and runs his fingers over the engraved gold and precious stones of the buckle he’s had with him for the last few days. He smiles to himself, on the brink of sleep, and thinks, <em>I’ll be golden soon enough, when I manage to sell this for good</em>.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>A bird chirps outside their window, as if on a wakeup call, and Johnny realizes that by now, he’s probably already memorized every sound Mark and Donghyuck make as they sleep, all curled up against each other on the mattress opposite to the one where he lays. They make a good couple, despite Johnny’s many complaints about how wrapped up in each other they can get sometimes; seeing them like that this close, though, sparks something inside his chest. Half of it tastes of fondness, happiness for his friends. The other half is somehow bitter, an unnamable kind of ache—something about longing, something about want.</p><p>He doesn’t allow himself much time to dwell on it, though. At this point, when there’s enough light bleeding into the tiny room for it to be acceptable for him to get out of bed and get dressed, Johnny’s mind is way more set on the mission they must carry out before it’s too late than on anything else; and so he nudges at Mark’s ribs and calls out for him and Donghyuck until they wake up and are ready to start.</p><p>The Seogamni Gold Buckle awaits for them to return it to its rightful place in history—and silently, Johnny wonders if there’s something they could do to give one to Ten, too.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It is by mere chance that they cross paths with Ten as he walks down the street that leads to a side square just off to the right from the ruined building they last saw him in.</p><p>Not for the first time since he’s known him, Johnny is grateful for Donghyuck’s quick mind and quicker mouth—plan setting into motion before Johnny even realizes it <em>is</em> Ten that’s walking towards them, hood over his head and hands tightly pressed into the pockets of his dirtied jacket.</p><p>“Oh, hey!” Donghyuck calls out softly when they’re close enough, faking a surprised gasp for the sake of their act, “Sorry, do you have a second? We might have an offer for you!”</p><p>Ten stops dead in his tracks for a second, eyes bolting up to them from where they were staring at the ground before, and Johnny sees the way his muscles lock as his brain is quick to ponder over their words. His eyes shift between the three of them quickly, as if weighing his chances; but eventually, he seems to decide they don’t pose a threat to him, no matter how much Johnny’s frame hovers above his own—and it makes Johnny think if this is somehow normal to Ten, having people come up to him with different offers, and his stomach churns and makes himself ache even though he is not sure what for.</p><p>“Sure,” Ten grins, his smile all teeth, confidence dripping like ambrosia for them to drink from his lips, “What can I do for you?”</p><p>Mark gets an elbow to the ribs when he goes to open his mouth, Donghyuck taking over the shit-talking as he racks his eyes over Ten’s lithe frame, head to toe and then back up again. “We work for a modelling magazine, just starting new, you know, first press and all,” he lies easily, head tilted to the side as he stares into Ten’s eyes, “and I think you’d make a pretty good feature on it, if you’d work with us. I’m sure we could make you look real good… for a good amount of money too, of course.”</p><p>It’s quite a risky choice of lie, the three of them know. South Korea saw in <em>Uisang</em> the publishing of its first fashion magazine in 1964, eight years ahead from Ten’s age; but Donghyuck’s convincing stare and the confidence with which he speaks the words probably bleed through Ten’s flesh and soak up his brain, deceiving him into the novelty of it all. <em>Everybody wants a distraction nowadays</em>, Mark had said. Johnny couldn’t say he doesn’t either.</p><p>Ten’s eyebrows raise in suspicion, eyes narrowing at the sudden way in which Donghyuck just said that—as if he were some sort of treasure awaiting to be discovered, as if that world was one that could be within his reach. “Are you kidding me?”</p><p>“Does it look like I am?” Donghyuck chuckles, moving his hands to open his coat.</p><p>Taking in the way his shoulders relax as Donghyuck pulls out an obviously fake business card from the inner pocket of his coat and hands it to him, Johnny wonders if Ten knows there’s a price on his head—that what he’s stolen is worth way more than he might believe it to be, that what he probably thinks is his opportunity to gain a better life might as well be the end of it, too.</p><p>“I have nothing better to do today, so,” Ten speaks up slowly as he finishes reading over the card, eyes lifting from the white cardboard to stare back at them. At last, his eyes lay upon Johnny, and a smirk makes his way into his mouth again, stretching the corners upwards until they make a dimple appear on his cheek, “Do you think we could get it done right now?”</p><p>Ten’s gaze does not move away from Johnny’s eyes and, for some reason, he finds himself unable to look away from him; as if hypnotized, drawn to him in a way that feels so foreign it makes breathing hurt. Something takes over him, for he doesn’t even let Donghyuck reply; says, “Of course,” mission kicking into motion at the very back of his brain, and something else on the forefront, “Come back with us to the studio?”</p><p>Johnny doesn’t allow himself to look over at Mark’s and Donghyuck’s surely surprised faces; tilts his head towards Ten and starts walking, hoping he’ll follow—wish upon a shooting star, a tradition he’s been quick to learn.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>In the few hours that follow their encounter, Johnny learns this faster than he managed to learn Seoul’s modern public transport system: Ten is absolutely <em>shameless</em>, in a way that leaves his mouth tasting like cotton and his head spinning from the whiplash that is to feel stared at like this for the first time in his life.</p><p>But Ten does not mind about Johnny’s evident flush and bashful stance at all. No, he relishes in it; takes it for himself and keeps it as a prize, a proof of his power, executed kindly yet unforgivingly, dawning it upon Johnny with such force that he’s left almost breathless, hands sweating inside the pockets of his jacket as he walks by Ten’s side, the distance until they arrive to the agent’s house they’re going to use as a pretend-office stretching itself thin until it, from Johnny’s own perspective, becomes infinite.</p><p>“So, do you live in Seoul?” Ten asks, wide smile morphing his soft features into something akin to hungry and feline. It reminds Johnny of seeing him petting the cats last night, and his heart feels heavy where it’s beating against his ribs.</p><p>“Uh, yeah,” Johnny says, because well, it’s not a lie. For how long he’s been a Ministry’s agent, he’s surely yet to master the art of deception, “I live here, yes. Do you?”</p><p>The question is dumb—of course Ten does; they caught him on the very same streets they’re walking upon now, and Johnny’s about to take the question back when Ten cackles a loud, sincere laugh; one that comes from the bottom of his chest and makes wrinkles appear around his eyes, closed into crescent moons, softening his every gesture.</p><p>“Yeah,” Ten replies, a glint in his eye when he meets Johnny’s flustered gaze, “I live here too. But it’s weird, you know. I would remember you if I’d seen you around before.”</p><p>“Seoul is pretty big,” Johnny says uselessly, his tongue feeling thick and sluggish inside his mouth, and he doesn’t quite understand why the conversation is making him feel like this—if it’s because Ten is their mission or something else, the curve of nose and his high cheekbones, the honey dripping from his every word, “maybe you’ve just forgotten me.”</p><p>“Oh, trust me,” Ten smirks, the sight making Johnny’s erratic heart skip a beat, “I wouldn’t forget a man as handsome as you in a million years.”</p><p>Blood rushes to Johnny’s cheeks like a torrent, the tan skin glowing with a soft pink hue he tries to hide behind his scarf. A million years is a long time—Johnny has lived most of his life in one moment and then moved some hundred years ahead to become who he is today, but not even once has he had anyone, much less another man, refer to him in such manner; calling him <em>handsome</em> like they truly mean it, all flirtation and hidden lust, sin and promises Johnny doesn’t really know how to deal with.</p><p>“Uh,” he babbles, setting his eyes straight ahead where Mark and Donghyuck are walking side by side, their elbows bumping randomly as if their bodies couldn’t bear to be centimeters away from each other without touching for long, “Thank you.”</p><p>“You’re very welcome,” Ten giggles easily, his eyes leaving Johnny’s profile so he too can stare at the couple strolling in front of them for a few seconds before asking, “Are your friends dating?”</p><p>“That’s quite a personal question,” Johnny frowns, reminding himself of where they are. The 2020’s are not quite Heaven, but the fifties surely do not tolerate as much as their present does.</p><p>“Oh, sorry,” Ten says, and it’s all serious now, “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I see no problem with men liking other men, you know. Don’t say it too much around here, but it would make me quite the hypocrite.”</p><p>At this, Johnny turns his head to look at Ten’s frame. He isn’t looking back at him, but he knows himself stared at, and so he straightens his back and tilts his chin up, proud in his stance, more powerful than Johnny’s ever witnessed any emperor be.</p><p>“Would it?” Johnny finds himself asking, light in his teasing, for once comfortable in his own skin.</p><p>“Of course it would,” Ten laughs, his dark eyes crystal clear finally meeting Johnny’s, “I too find myself quite… fond of other men’s looks and touches, if you know what I mean.”</p><p>“Oh,” is Johnny’s automatic reply, a little bit too void of surprise because this was something he’d already known—would have known, really, even without Taeyong’s heads-up back in their headquarters, from the mere look in Ten’s eyes when he’d raked Johnny’s body head to toe upon first meeting, soaking him in as if he’d wanted to swallow him whole; from the way he says it confidently yet in a small voice, his reality sure one much less safe than Johnny’s own, despite time-travelling missions and history changing duties, “That’s all fine with me. You don’t have to worry.”</p><p>“Ah, I wasn’t worried,” Ten smiles to himself, taking his eyes away from Johnny one more time, and Johnny glances at his wristwatch to calculate how long it will take them to finally arrive at the house.</p><p>“You weren’t?” Johnny hums, rolling back his right shoulder when it aches from having his arm bent in the same position to hide his fisted hand in his pocket for long.</p><p>“I used to be, before,” Ten says, a soft sigh pushing past his pink, horribly chapped lips—the cold of Seoul’s night tearing away at his skin, making him ache silently, keep fighting for a better life, “You know, John, I don’t live on the streets for a choice—ah, don’t act like you couldn’t have guessed, my clothes are dirty and you can probably smell my cats on my skin from where you stand. It’s all fine!”</p><p>“You don’t have to talk to me about this if you don’t want to,” Johnny is quick to say, wouldn’t quite know how it would feel to lay yourself bare before a stranger in a position as vulnerable as this—especially when they are blatantly <em>lying</em> to Ten, about their intentions and who they are, when he seems so intent on talking about his life without worrying at all.</p><p>“It’s alright,” Ten smiles, and Johnny can tell that he means it, because his eyes lack mischief when they meet Johnny’s own, tired and genuine, “My family… I think they always knew, even since I was pretty young. But, you see, most people do not tolerate… people like <em>me</em>, and my parents were no exception. I’ve been on the streets since I was twenty and they caught me kissing the neighbor’s kid behind the fence on a Thursday night. I don’t know what happened to him—I never really got to see him again, because, well. I was kicked out from my home and threatened to never come back, and so, you know,” the corner of his lips are turned upwards, but his smile is the saddest one Johnny’s seen in a long, long while, “Being caught used to scare me to death back then—but then the war happened, and even on the streets I managed to survive, and these days… there’s more people willing to fuck you if you’ll keep your mouth shut than you’d believe there to be, John. I’m not afraid anymore. I don’t really have anything to lose, do I?”</p><p>None of them say another word in the next few moments. Their steps on the stone pavement resonating loudly inside Johnny’s skull are almost hypnotizing, making him drown in Ten’s story, and ache to pull him back.</p><p>Ten is their mission. The Gold Buckle must be returned to its rightful place in history, no matter how small of an impact it will have on people’s lives, because it will probably have Ten dead sooner than later if they do not complete their task and history is what it was, not what they would’ve liked it to be.</p><p>Ten is a person. His suffering is not so different from that of which they relieved Donghyuck upon recruitment—even more so, for his circumstances in reality and time are unforgivingly different, and Taeyong’s words from that one day replay themselves in Johnny’s head as if on an infinite loop. <em>“We have the opportunity to give him another chance—to live freely and safely be himself in a world a little bit more tolerant than it used to be back then, all the while doing history a favor,”</em> the Secretary General had said, a truth so undeniable that it sounds evident even to Johnny’s ancient ears, <em>“I wish I could do it for literally everyone suffering because of this all throughout history,”</em> because everyone deserves a second chance, and it’s not like they can give it to everyone they cross paths with in their missions, because kings are kings and nobility and writers and musicians and soldiers having the key to specific moments in history cannot be saved no matter how much they would like to change their fate, but it is in moments like these that Johnny feels indebted—because if he had a second chance, if Donghyuck and Mark and Yuta and Jungwoo did, then why can’t they give one to Ten, too.</p><p>He is searching for the right words to say when Ten stifles a soft laugh against the back of his hand, accompanied by a little shake of his head.</p><p>“Don’t worry too much about it, I’ve had enough time to get used to this life,” Ten says gently, giving it a second before his voice regains its distinctive teasing tilt, “Now, why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself, <em>Chief Editor</em> John,” he prompts with an amused little smile, lips pressed tight together in a gesture that makes him look way more innocent than Johnny knows him to be, “I’d <em>really</em> like to know my employer a little bit better before we arrive to your place.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Donghyuck takes Ten into a separate room to give him some clothes the Ministry’s fashion department—and actual and one of the most important parts of their organization, in charge of making sure every agent blends perfectly into the fashion trend of every historical period they visit—passed to them through the door that took them here and will, too, bring them back to the present once their mission is done.</p><p>Johnny waits with Mark in the living-room-turned-impromptu-photography-studio, watching as the younger fiddles with an old camera and tries to get used to its working and its weight.</p><p>“How vintage,” Mark mumbles to himself, then turns to Johnny with wide open eyes, “Dude, did you have cameras back in your day?”</p><p>“Not that I know,” Johnny chuckles, his eyes mindlessly wandering to the half-closed door behind which Ten is changing into clean clothes while Donghyuck chats him up.</p><p>“Damn,” Mark simply says, turning his attention back to the camera for a second before adding, “He’s quite interesting, isn’t he.”</p><p>“What?” Johnny automatically retorts, already feeling his cheeks starting to heat up against his will, “Why?”</p><p>“You two were having quite the conversation while we walked here,” Mark giggles, leaning against the wall as he stretches his arms over his head, “We heard him say you looked like you’d also like men.”</p><p>Johnny doesn’t blush. His face actually combusts into flames—the tips of his ears burning red, all the heat emanating from the center of the Earth concentrating on his cheeks and making it almost impossible to breathe. Mark looks amused as a kid watching his favorite movie for the hundredth time; a grin stretching over his cheeks and even making his dimples appear, absolutely <em>delighted</em> as he watches Johnny struggle with his own words.</p><p>“Listening to other people’s conversations is wrong,” Johnny all but whines, his voice low and his eyes anxiously darting to ensure Ten and Donghyuck cannot hear them talk, “Yeah, he said that. So what? How is that interesting?”</p><p>“Oh, it’s nothing,” Mark is <em>clearly</em> suppressing a laugh, his cub-like face a mirror full of mischief, “You didn’t tell him you aren’t, s’all.”</p><p>“Oh my God,” Johnny takes a couple steps away from Mark, burning red all the way down his neck into the collar of his shirt, “Shut up and focus, will you? This is <em>important</em> and—”</p><p>“What is?” Ten pipes up as he walks out the door with Donghyuck in tow, looking clean and pristine in his new outfit.</p><p>“Your pictures are!” Mark replies, sounding more confident than Johnny’s probably ever heard him, “We’re super excited about launching this magazine… It’s going to be quite the revolution for Korean society.”</p><p>“Sure it will,” Ten grins, and Johnny find himself unable to look away from how small his waist looks cinched by a belt; a flowy white top contrasting with the honey of his skin and making him wonder, for the shortest fraction of a second, what he’d taste like under Johnny’s teeth.</p><p>“You look good,” Johnny blurts, and if he weren’t already feeling dizzy from how flustered Mark had made him a mere moment ago, he would probably burst into fireworks and dust as he says so.</p><p>“Ah, thank you, John,” Ten’s smile is kind yet knowing, giving Johnny a long, sultry stare that leaves his bones shaking before turning to Mark to say, “I’m all ready when you are!”</p><p>And, just like that, the last phase of their plan is kicked into motion.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Johnny disappears into the room where Ten changed clothes while Donghyuck positions him around the almost-emptied space of the living room and Mark takes pictures he’s not too worried about because they are never going to be revealed anyways.</p><p>He needs to act fast for the sake of their cover. He excused himself from the ‘shooting session’ under the premise of going to look for a scarf for Ten to wear in some pictures, barely getting a glance in return as he slipped back into the small room where Ten’s dirty clothes rest piled in the middle of the floor.</p><p>Alone as he is, it is easy to bend down and reach inside the almost-torn pockets of his coat and his pants, nerves and excitement running up his spine like white lightning when his fingers meet the cold, engraved surface of the Gold Buckle where it is wrapped underneath an old piece of cloth.</p><p>The plan goes so well that it almost feels unreal. Somehow, Johnny expected it to go a little bit differently—for Ten not to succumb to their lies so easily, for him to put up a fight, and inside his chest he finds with untold happiness that he is glad things did not come down to that point in the end.</p><p>“Have you ever been told that looking into other people’s stuff is quite impolite, John?” Ten suddenly snarls behind Johnny’s back, Mark’s pained expression from where he’s been harshly pushed to the ground by Ten contrasting with Donghyuck’s bewildered one, and it bitterly reminds Johnny to simply stop taking things for granted,  “You should have closed the door first if you wanted to rob me, you fucking idiot.”</p><p>“I’m not robbing you,” Johnny says almost automatically, eyes wide as plates as he holds the Buckle to his chest—a truth despite what it must look like to Ten, who had surely put all his hopes of having a better life on selling the Buckle to the best bidder without a care in the world, “Listen, Ten, we can explain—”</p><p>“Save your explanations!” Ten screams, pure rage brimming under the throbbing vein on his neck as he walks closer to Johnny, uncaring of their evident size difference, “You filthy <em>liars</em>, you thought that just because I’m fucking poor and living on the damned street I’d be stupid, didn’t you? Well, maybe it’s you all who are fucking dumb! You could’ve reported me to the authorities, trust me, it wouldn’t have been the first time, but you tried to steal it away from me. Now that is stupid.”</p><p>“Ten,” Donghyuck tries to approach him, but is met with such a deliriously dangerous stare that it leaves him frozen on the spot, “listen to us, please, I swear we can explain.”</p><p>“I don’t want to listen,” Ten hisses, turning his eyes back to Johnny, “John. Give it back to me right <em>now</em>.”</p><p>“I can’t,” Johnny says helplessly, tightening his hand around the pure gold object in fear of it slipping from how much he’s starting to sweat. He shares an anxious look with Mark, who’s clutching his arm as he stands from the ground and tries to think about a solution, “Ten, this thing here is important for Korean history. We have to return it to its place.”</p><p>“Oh, sure, I care so much for that shit,” Ten laughs meanly, walking closer to Johnny with his hands closed into fists, “I might look small but trust me, I know how to put up a fight. Give. It. To. Me. Now.”</p><p>“No,” Johnny says again, a sudden surge of confidence wrapping itself tight around his muscles and making him straighten his back, towering over Ten’s smaller frame while Donghyuck rushes to Mark's side and starts whispering something in his ear. It sparks a fire inside his chest—gives him the strength he needs to push the words he’s been wanting to say since the very beginning out of his mouth, “Listen to me. We lied, alright, we did! There is no magazine, and we do not live here. This is not even the year we live in. We come from the twenty-first century, work for the Ministry of Time and—”</p><p>“Are you on drugs or something?” Ten chuckles, wrapping his hand tightly around Johnny’s left wrist—urging him to let go of the Buckle, bring him back the most valious thing he’s ever held in his hands, “You cannot possibly think I’m dumb enough to believe that bullshit.”</p><p>“But it’s true,” Johnny insists, holding his gaze to Ten, “I could not believe it at first, either—none of us could. But it’s the truth, Ten, and we can offer you a better life if you simply return the Buckle to the place you found it in. There’s a price on your head, but we can save you. You—you could come back to the Ministry with us, and in 2020, hell, you could have a second chance, <em>please</em>—”</p><p>“You’re delusional,” Ten says, jaw tight as he stares into Johnny’s eyes, and he can tell the anxiousness that’s threatening to take control over him and make all hell break loose, “I’m going to break your stupid nose if you don’t—”</p><p>“Ten,” Mark calls as he enters the room, the tablet held in his hands displaying the paused image of a video, “look at this. Please.”</p><p>To this day, Johnny still doesn’t really understand why Ten did.</p><p>Desperation is one unstoppable force—he knows it first hand, has seen it become the motive of endless missions since he first arrived to the Ministry and started working as an agent, but their eyes meet for a brief second and, somehow, it sets the world into motion once again. He doesn’t know what happens, what Ten must see in him; if it’s his own personal desire of helping him or something more, the untold promise of a better life, of something deeper coming from his chest, the genuine story of how he does not want to do him any harm.</p><p>It’s the first time in Johnny’s life he’s felt the need to care this much for a literal stranger, but then again, the look in Ten’s eyes, for some unknown reason, feels like home. Years from now, he’ll learn to put a name on this feeling; but for now, he just gives him an encouraging nod and hopes for the best with everything he’s got.</p><p>“What is this thing?” Ten asks when he sees the tablet, dumbfounded, but Mark says nothing and hits the play button instead.</p><p>The video is one he himself recorded last year at Seoul’s twentieth Pride Parade. There were seventy thousand people manifesting themselves for LGBT rights and celebrating the passing of same-sex marriage laws in neighboring Taiwan, and the colors and the music are so vivid in Mark’s video that Johnny can almost taste the memory on the back of his tongue. At the far back, there’s a banner that reads <em>Happy 2020 Pride</em>; proof of their truth, one they wish will make Ten see it’s not fantasy tales they’re telling him.</p><p>It was Mark and Donghyuck that dragged him there so he could truly see what it was like to be <em>proud</em> of who you are, Johnny eager to support his friends with everything he had inside his chest. They met with Taeyong and his husband Doyoung there, and with Yuta and Jungwoo who’d come to accompany them, and the day had overall been so gratifying for Johnny that he’s stored it in his brain as one of the best of his life.</p><p>“Ten,” Donghyuck calls out once the video ends, soft as if he were talking to a scared animal, walking closer to them but still far enough not to make him feel cornered, “I was going to have my life ruined in 1998 for being who I am, but these guys found me and gave me the chance to try again and meet Mark and truly be who I am. Let us give you that opportunity too, please.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Johnny says softly, trying to meet Ten’s gaze and failing, for it is stuck on the screen as if he’d just seen a ghost, “Ten, <em>please</em>. Come back to the present with us. Let us help you return the Buckle, and then—then we can help you build a new life, away from here, in a new home… helping us too, if you’d want.”</p><p>An eternal moment of silence passes, in which none of them dare to say another word. Only Ten’s heavy breathing echoes against the blank walls of the house, getting more and more ragged by the second, his brain surely going into overload before it all bursts into an explosion of emotional debris and distraught.</p><p>“I’m nobody’s fucking charity case,” Ten ends up sobbing against Johnny’s chest, overwhelmed enough for air to struggle in finding its way into his lungs, “I—you lied to me but, this, what am I supposed to think, I <em>can’t</em> think, don’t you see, oh God—”</p><p>“I know,” Johnny mumbles against Ten’s hair, wrapping his arms tight around his shoulders as he shakes and enveloping him into the hug he knows Ten unconsciously craves, “Believe me, I know, but Ten, please. Trust me on this one—please. I don’t want to hurt you in any way.”</p><p>“That’s what everyone’s always said,” Ten wails, broken and vulnerable where he’d been iron strong before, “It’s always a lie.”</p><p>“Well, it’s not this time,” Johnny mumbles close to his ear, so Mark and Donghyuck won’t hear from where they’re expectantly staring at them, and it’s so painfully honest that it almost scares Johnny once he speaks the words, “Let’s give it a try, together, alright? I promise you you’ll be fine. Please.”</p><p>Ten’s tears are burning hot where they fall from his tightly closed eyes down the curve of Johnny’s neck, unforgivingly sharp as they cut through his courageous armor and leave him bare before the three people that he oh-so-badly wants to trust but doesn’t really know how to. Johnny is aware of how impossible what they are offering seems—how far-fetched it sounds, stories pulled out straight of a fairytale and turned into a reality he is grateful for every day of his life.</p><p>In the middle of this room, on the year 1956 in a Seoul that’s halfway through recovering its splendor after the events that took away the light from its streets and its people, Johnny sees himself standing in front of Taeyong on that one abandoned barn seventy years back from this day—terrified to the core, overwhelmed at the prospect of the world not being how he’d always believed, <em>studied</em> it to be, and yet with nothing left to lose; a soul seeking for redemption and finding something else: friendship and purpose, and the unsettling knowledge of knowing yourself lacking yet not knowing what.</p><p>For a long time, throughout all the periods of history he’s been sent to protect all the way to the twenty-first century, Johnny’s been struggling to understand why, despite having been met by the comfort of a life he could’ve never believed to ever have, there is a weight inside his chest preventing him from being truly happy that will not go away no matter what he does. He’s dedicated it so much thought; has tried to analyze every single aspect of his existence, the way he orbits around a bigger something alongside Mark and Donghyuck, as if they were sibling satellites, how Lee Taeyong opened a door to him that gave Johnny the possibility of expand himself infinitely, learning things he could have only dreamed to see; how, at the end of the day, he’s not alone yet somehow feels lonely, with no home to return to, no one to share the weight and the mirth of existing with.</p><p>Upon his arrival, Johnny was told that the Ministry of Time’s patrols are tasked with protecting history—leaving it the way it once was, mere defense from possible alterations, not a trace ever left behind that could change the course of time.</p><p>What no one ever told him is how, in the process of protecting it, they could create moments that are history in themselves—not for the greater good, maybe, for history books do not talk about heartfelt romances and unshed tears—, how they will live through certain events that will shape their consciences until they no longer are what they once thought themselves to be.</p><p>When they saved Donghyuck that night in 1996, Mark met the one person he swears wants to spend the rest of his life with. The Earth did not stop turning on its axis, nor did the pages of Taeyong’s <em>Modern Times Encyclopedia</em> change, but their lives changed; and isn’t it beautiful, to have a history of your own—one nobody but you can shape and protect, defend from the bad weather, always cherish and keep safe.</p><p>When Johnny gently reaches with his thumb to wipe away the tears running in rivulets across Ten’s cheeks, the museums do not open a new exhibit nor do archeologists find their bones mingled together underneath piles of ash a thousand years away from now, but Ten’s eyes meet his own and it feels cataclysmic. Donghyuck will one day call it karma, Taeyong will use the word kismet; Mark will say it was destiny, and Johnny will just throw his head back in laughter and respond with flushed cheeks, <em>“it must have been written somewhere”</em>.</p><p>Ten smiles at him, then, and it’s a miserable little gesture but also the Sun peeking out from behind dark clouds after the deadliest storm, and Johnny’s heart skips a beat that Ten steals and keeps with himself forever. “You know what,” Ten sniffles, letting his light weight rest where Johnny’s arms are pressing him to his chest, “Fine. You—you can keep the goddamned thing, return it or whatever and then—take me wherever you want. I don’t care if it’s, God, the fucking future like y-you lot probably come from, or wherever it is that you want to take me. There is nothing you can take away from me anyways, so. I swear I’ll go anywhere as long as you just let me bring my cats.”</p><p>Mark lets out the breath he’d been holding for a while and slumps against Donghyuck’s side. “Thank God,” he wheezes, making them all snort, “dude, this was some high-tension shit.”</p><p>“Ten,” Donghyuck says softly, a hand reaching out to him, “thank you for trusting us. I swear it will be worth it.”</p><p>Ten nods silently and watches Mark retrieve the Seoganmi Gold Buckle from where Johnny had dropped it to the ground while he was hugging him, and he grins as he examines the golden piece and its turquoise precious stones. “Mission success,” Mark claps, pushing it into his pocket.</p><p>“Not so fast,” Donghyuck chastises, “We have to return it to the warehouse first, and then we can finally go back home.”</p><p>As the four of them get on their way—Ten trying to regain his composure by asking Johnny endless questions as if he knew the answer to every secret in the universe, all the while avoiding his eyes for it makes his cheeks burn bright pink—, the familiar feeling of closure after a completed mission does not dawn itself upon him.</p><p>“Will you guide me through the future, then? Is that where you got these nice clothes? Are <em>fashion magazines</em> a real thing?” Ten wonders, eyes shiny with excitement, tongue quick as he swipes it over his bottom lip.</p><p>Instead, it all feels like some sort of beginning—of what, Johnny does not know, but oh, is he willing to find out, to risk it all one more time just to see things for their true worth.</p><p>“I’ll be there,” Johnny says, solid answer to every single thing Ten might ever request, “and it’ll be all fine.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The first time Johnny sees Ten’s face, it is plastered on a spread of a 1950’s Seoul local newspaper, black-and-white print doing nothing to dull the breathtaking beauty of his teasing smile.</p><p>When Johnny sees him today, first thing after opening his eyes as the soft warmth of the morning sun starts to creep into their bedroom through the blinds, Ten is curled up in bed next to him in full color, soft pink and orange hues making him glow, serene and relaxed, the only love of Johnny’s inter-temporal life.</p><p> </p><p>It takes them eight months to get together after they bring Ten back from 1956 to the Ministry with them.</p><p>The shock of finding himself in timeline so different from his own has Ten struggling to grasp the reigns of this new reality, in which not only does he not have to live in the way he’d been used to, but also needs to adapt as fast as he can to the inevitable fact that the world changes so rapidly that it’ll let you fall off its face if you don’t run. Still, healing is a slow process, but not an infinite one. In the end, spring always comes—welcomes them with her open arms and sets the start of a new life ahead of them all.</p><p>All of them are there for him as he learns the functioning of the Ministry, Taeyong as good of a guide to him as he’s been to Johnny and Mark and Yuta and Donghyuck, and if Ten’s wits turn out to be more of a weapon than a threat to their patrol, it is their pleasure to enjoy. When he’s got free time and wants to learn something new, or whenever things become a little too much, Ten comes to Johnny—open and unafraid, confident in his own distress, and lets himself be nursed back into health by a force he isn’t really able to understand.</p><p>“I don’t know why,” Ten muses one day, chin resting on the palm of his hand as he stares at Johnny across one of the tables in the Ministry’s cafeteria, “but I feel like you just <em>get me</em>, you know?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Johnny laughs, sipping on what Mark calls an Americano, “don’t know why either, actually, but it feels the same for me too. It’s weird, right?”</p><p>“Definitely,” Ten grins, mischief shining like the moon in his eyes, “but not in a bad way.”</p><p>“Oh, no,” Johnny blushes lightly under his intense stare, “It’s a fact most pleasing, truly.”</p><p>And get each other they do, in ways Johnny could have never imagined himself to be around other people, much less another man. Ten seems able to read his mind, to put into words the feelings Johnny does not know how to name; and when Ten is at his darkest, Johnny becomes a lighthouse to guide him shore, a solid shoulder against which to cry and a warm hand to hold on.</p><p>That is why, when one night after going out to try different kinds of wine with Mark and Donghyuck Ten wraps his arms around Johnny’s neck and presses their lips together, nobody bats an eye. <em>“It was a long time coming,” </em>Mark would roll his eyes in the morning, but meanwhile Johnny lets himself bask in the feeling and think, <em>damn, this was it</em>—what he was silently missing, unnamed aches and hopes of his heart.</p><p>Homecoming in the spring, warm shelter during winter, home when there is nothing else but the arms that hold you upright on the hardest nights. Ten becomes all of that and more to Johnny—and it’s <em>historical</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“Morning,” Ten grunts when Johnny wakes him up by pressing fluttering kisses to his cheeks until he opens his eyes, sleepy and the cutest person Johnny’s ever seen, all laid out for him in his own bed, “What time is it?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Johnny smiles, supporting his head up with his arm as he lays on his side to watch Ten come back to life, one more day they get to share together, medicine for aching hearts, “It’s Sunday, anyways. We don’t have to go anywhere.”</p><p>“Mhm,” Ten mumbles, lazily blinking his eyes and shifting on the mattress until he’s mirroring Johnny’s position; his eyes stuck on his boyfriend as the engines inside his clever brain start rolling, loud enough for Johnny to hear from where he lays, “That’s right. That means we can stay in bed for a little longer, doesn’t it?”</p><p>“Well,” Johnny laughs, pecking the tip of Ten’s nose before rolling to lay on his back, a knowing smile already tugging at the corners of his lips, “maybe.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Ten echoes the rumbling sound of his chest, grinning as he climbs to straddle Johnny and lets the white sheets slide away from his bare body, temptation for the damned as he leans down to leave a trail of kisses down Johnny’s jaw, “maybe.”</p><p>And this is a routine, Johnny reckons, he could get used to. He fears he’s already become an addict to Ten’s lips and Ten’s skin, to his touch and his movements, the warmth of his body and the gentleness of his heart—but then they end up always here in this same place, pressed so close together there’s no way to tell where each of them ends and the other begins, and so he relishes in it and lets the worries fly far away, back into past times to turn to dust and be gone with the autumn wind.</p><p>But routine, of course, entails something more than joy and love.</p><p>From his bedside table, Johnny’s phone starts ringing with an incoming call, and the sound is one he’s learnt to recognize well during the past few years. After all, it was Taeyong himself that set a different ringtone for his contact on Johnny’s then brand new smartphone.</p><p>“Fuck,” Ten groans, slowing his movements atop Johnny, flushed cheeks bulging as he presses his lips into a pout, “you gotta pick that up.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Johnny sighs, reaching over to swipe his finger over the screen and pressing a finger to Ten’s lips in the universal signal to stay quiet. It turns out to be counterproductive, for Ten takes the digit into his mouth like the goddamned <em>tease</em> that he is, “Hello?” he answers the call, and if his voice comes out a little bit strained it is no one’s fault but Ten’s.</p><p>“Johnny,” Taeyong speaks into the phone in evident distress, “I take it Ten is there with you?”</p><p>“Uh,” Ten is <em>definitely</em> there with him, in all his naked glory, lavishing Johnny’s fingers with his tongue as if they were his greatest treat, “yeah. He’s—uh, he’s here.”</p><p>“Great,” Taeyong rushes, and over the line Johnny hears the rustle of pages being turned, “Come to the Ministry right now. Both of you. It’s urgent.”</p><p>“What happened?” Johnny manages to ask while fixing Ten a glare that is both a plea for more and to stop.</p><p>“Something terrible has happened,” Taeyong agonizes into the phone, “and SHINee have not debuted in 2008, <em>shit</em>, their whole discography is gone, Taemin is sobbing in my office—he’s one of our secret agents, you know, but oh God, please, get yourselves here right <em>now</em>!”</p><p>The line goes dead after that, and Johnny is stuck in between letting out a manic laugh or bang his head against the nearest wall.</p><p>“So?” Ten asks when Johnny stops responding to his innuendos, flopping down next to him on the mattress with concern dripping from his eyes.</p><p>“Mission,” Johnny says uselessly, still too confused to elaborate any more on that, “we gotta go.”</p><p>And routine, too, is this: watching Ten pull clothes out of their shared closet every morning and thinking,<em> “I’m so glad that you and I crossed paths”</em>; and saying, “Yo, nice ass.”</p><p>“I know,” Ten smirks, “but stop picking up mannerisms from <em>Mark</em> out of everyone, please.”</p><p>Yeah, it is; and routine—it doesn’t have to be something bad, not when it feels this happy, when it feels this warm.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thank you so so so much for reading! it makes me so happy that you spend a little time of your day reading this work (ꈍᴗꈍ)♡ please leave kudos and/or comment if you enjoyed this story, and you can find me on <a href="https://twitter.com/hanniecuqui">twt</a> and <a href="https://curiouscat.me/peekatom">cc</a> &lt;3.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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